I posted this question a few minutes ago and then deleted it because I thought I had it fixed. Just kidding about the fixed part.

So I'm setting up a new laptop for our Win7 conversion and it likes to freeze up after pushing ALT-CTRL-DEL at the log-in screen. I still get the mouse, but there's nothing else to push or do except a hard restart.

Safe mode logs in like a champ. I'm getting this particular error in the event viewer:

The Network List Service depends on the Network Location Awareness Service which failed to start because of the following error: The dependency service or group failed to start.

I've found some stuff on google how people ran the system file checker in the cmd prompt and fixed some corrupted files, but after I ran it, Windows didn't come up with anything. I noticed the other day that I got a slight shock from the ethernet cable before plugging it into the laptop and wanted to know if it might've also fried the NIC card if it was too hot currency-wise. I also updated the drivers from Acer's website, but no luck.

I went to another port with a different cable in our building to isolate that issue, it seems like the problem carries over. So maybe we'll disregard the shocking thing. I could've rubbed my feet a little too hard on my plastic chairmat ; )